Gators cap strong week with dominant win vs. Vols

The buzzer-beater heat check before halftime didn’t go. It was from roughly 28 feet out, for that matter. No number in Florida’s metrics-driven program suggested that was the right call.

But no one in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center faulted Boogie Fland for taking it. In the previous three-some-odd minutes, he made a 26-26 game into a 41-28 one, which ultimately culminated as an emphatic 91-67 pummeling of No. 21 Tennessee, backed by his season-high 23 points.

There were the three triples — the ones he had not hit all season while shooting 19% from deep, a good 15 points below what Florida bought in the transfer market from Arkansas. There were also the less-quantifiable effort plays, like when he morphed into a free safety and jumped to intercept an inbound pass with one hand high, as if asking for more minutes.

“He took over offensively,” Florida coach Todd Golden said, taking a short break from calling Fland from the bench to the substitution box. “Seeing him play freely, knock down two threes in the first half, starting to get downhill in transition, it just kind of took a lot of the pressure and a little bit of the stress off everybody else. Once he started playing like that, we really took off.”

Florida (11-5) entered this week unranked for the first time this season, having fallen from preseason No. 3. With the immediate chance to right their wrongs, the Gators hosted two ranked foes, No. 18 Georgia and Tennessee (11-5).

Two wins were probably enough to earn votes come Monday’s poll. A 183-point, 39-point margin of victory kind of week was enough to tell an SEC without a team in the top 10 that Florida’s repeat bid is alive and well, even after a 76-74 loss to Missouri a week ago.

The difference between now and then? Fland, for one. The sophomore guard didn’t score after the eight-minute mark on Saturday — had he, it would’ve been a career-high — but he was everything Florida envisioned him being when it was normal for the Gators to be in national championship talks. He shot an efficient 9 for 13 from the field, tacked on four steals and led Florida with five assists.

On the occasion the ball left Fland’s hands, it was bound for center Rueben Chinyelu. When Florida beat the Vols twice last year, he had a combined eight points and played himself off the court in favor of the smaller lineup that won Florida a championship. So his season-high 17 points, the concoction of true post moves he didn’t have last season and sheer size he has had since leaving Nigeria for Washington State, were a form of retribution for any doubt that he could be a focal point in this revamped Florida attack. Him fouling out with a couple of minutes left? Who cares?

“He totally dominated the game from an inside perspective,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said, and Golden agreed: “He’s growing into one of the best frontcourt players in the land.”

Before departing, Barnes was sure to emphasize the criminality of Florida being unranked with a simple, still pertinent, statement: “That front line, it won a national championship.”

The premise of Florida’s expectations going into this season was set on the basis of a returning frontcourt that would blossom into a force. Saturday, it looked closer to that form than at any point in its non-conference gauntlet, with preseason All-American Alex Condon adding 11 and Florida’s true All-American candidate, Thomas Haugh, scoring 13. It didn’t hurt that guards Xaivian Lee and Urban Klavzar also scored double digits.

Barnes’ statement was similar to what he said last season, after Florida announced itself to the sport by beating then-No. 1 Tennessee by 30 in January and after Florida cemented itself as a No. 1 seed by winning the SEC championship, beating Tennessee. The Volunteers are becoming a dependable audience for Florida’s proclamations, of which Golden’s was simple.

“We played our best game of the year,” he said. “When we start making some shots, we’re gonna be able to run away from some people. We were able to do that today.”

Rumor in Gainesville is that Fland’s haircut — a switch from the dreads he has had since high school to an afro — was the difference Saturday. Alas, Florida won a national championship last year because All-Everything star Walter Clayton Jr. made the same change. At least, that’s the thesis.

So call it a lucky barber. Or call it regression to the mean. But Fland’s reasoning was unambiguous. Time for a “fresh start.”

Florida just got one, too.